


Stretch Out and Wait

by MissRowe (IWroteMyEpitaphInFutureTense)



Category: Morrissey (Musician), The Smiths
Genre: Blow Jobs, Cunnilingus, F/M, First Time, Letters, Semi-Public Sex, Separation Anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2014-12-30
Packaged: 2018-03-04 10:04:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3063833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IWroteMyEpitaphInFutureTense/pseuds/MissRowe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the winter of '81, a lonely soul in Leeds decides to post a classified ad for a penpal in a popular music magazine.  She receives a blustering, fatuous, near-intolerable response from a certain Steven Patrick Morrissey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stretch Out and Wait

NOVEMBER 14, 1981

“MATURE HOUSEWIFE SEEKS BRIGHT YOUNG THING FOR DAVID BOWIE COMMISERATION AND LETTER EXCHANGE.” My address followed that dripping scrawl emblazoned across Soundwave Magazine’s official classifieds request form in bright black letters. I folded the entire affair as gracefully as I could, reached across my desk for an envelope, and slid the former into the latter with self-satisfied aplomb. I’d thought of a thousand different introductions: “PENPAL SOUGHT. MUSICAL LITERACY ESSENTIAL.” “TALK DIRTY TO ME ABOUT THE DEATH OF PUNK.” “PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE LET YOUR WORDS LIFT ME FROM THE SOUL-CRUSHING MONOTONY OF IT ALL.” They’d all been respectable and straightforward this morning- but as the hours ticked by and my ink-smeared hands flung draft after draft into the garbage, decorum gave way to flatulent affectation. Then again, I reflected, the RIGHT sort of backpage advertisement would probably generate a slew of replies from the RIGHT sort of person. I’d receive ingratiating letters clinging to every single convention of human interaction in neat ballpoint cursive about how wonderful it was to be able to discuss music with a fellow aficionado. RIGHT people bored me. Their stilted heraldries from across the gulf of souls rung shallow and unfulfilling. They always aspired to one soul-crushing occupation or another and they were incapable of occupying nuanced emotion for any stretch of time longer than a radio single. For once in my life, I wanted to meet someone wrong. _And what better way_ , I reflected as I gathered up my stamps, _than by posting a tasteless personal ad in a music magazine_?

I was seventeen years old. Unmarried, obviously. I was a languorously thin archipelago of careless bruising living out of a filthy university dorm room erected upon one of the great English wastelands. My friends were distant and disengaged, my sex life had ground to a screaming halt, and my studies (whatever they were) obsessed and repulsed me in equal measure. I was assured unequivocally only in the breadth and quality of my record collection. Draped across my mattress I would listen to album after album with my eyes screwed shut and my arms splayed at odd angles above me feeling horrendously important. In my seizing fits of self loathing, in the steel-gray sleepless dawn, in tears, in ecstasy, music was the grand equalizer. My silly unutterable hope- the hope which spurred me to write out the classified in the first place- was that by communicating with another obsessive, I might translate some of that passion into a real live human connection. Naked under observation it seemed so- needy. Who did I think I was, a heroine in the grip of romantic destiny? And so I’d smiled and written something witlessly pithy and sealed my fate with a sheen of saliva.

The following morning I trudged across campus dodging puddles of slush with my letter tucked into the breast pocket of a hand-me-down parka. It was one of those deceptively sunny mornings- light flooded the concrete in stark resplendent relief without an iota of accompanying warmth. I tugged my collar tight against my neck and pushed on. _Observe the warrior queen_ , I thought with amusement. _Watch how she braves the chill and the distance. Death himself cannot stand in her way_.

The university mail room was a bunker- practically a fortress- located a level below the main dining hall. With a foam cup of coffee in one hand and my envelope gripped in the other, I made my way down into the cavernous belly of the beast. Rows and rows of boxes faded before me into the fluorescent gloom and the ceiling above was arched like a brute industrial cathedral. _If the atom bomb ever drops_ , I reflected, _I’d love to be a postal clerk_. A lever labeled ‘OUTGOING’ lurked just a few steps to my right. As I hurried over and gripped it in one hypothermic fist, girlish nerves bubbled over at the base of my ribs. It was nearly shameful how delighted I was by the grand rush of potential within this inch-wide personal. With shaky fingers and a twisting grin, I wrenched open the metal dropbox, plunged my letter into darkness, and slammed the door shut with a flourish. _And now, until the December-January edition of Soundwave Magazine hits the shelves of reputable newsstands everywhere, we wait._

JANUARY 28, 1982:

There were three letters. One from some desperate soul in Newcastle begging for dirty pictures and asking whether I had “years of experience,” one from a girl around my age who’d written out about a thousand words in staunch defense of David Bowie, and one- well, one which was so startling it transcended judgement or dismissal.

“Hello university phantom. You’re awfully fortunate I distrust every word of your advertisement as I only accept my housewives high-breasted and virginal. Does the academic Lifestyles(™) lend itself to a great deal of self-actualization? Let’s hope not. Please don’t be frightened of me simply because I live in Manchester. We’re not ALL unemployed bedridden homosexuals. And golly gee, I can’t WAIT to hear what it’s like to be a member of the intelligentsia. Write back as soon as physically possible.

Love and pornography,

STEVEN.”

The missive was etched into a postcard in almost runic handwriting and surrounded by crude sketches of cartoon faces. _Someone should punch this boy in the teeth_ , I thought. Then I smiled, gripped the smeary rectangle between affectionate fingers, and rushed back to the dormitory to formulate my reply.

“Hello Steven.

You’ve caught me out in an elaborate ruse. Actually I am a romantically tubercular student of a whimsical and childish disposition. I promise to forgive you your Manchester if you’ll forgive me my bunkbed in Leeds. Have you never been to university? It’s either much more exciting or much less exciting than you think. Between shenanigans I stare out the window like a Dostoyevsky ingenue and listen to records. Have you bought any interesting albums lately? Be advised: I am prepared and eager to fight to the death in defense of my musical taste.

Sincerely yours,

MARGARET (That’s Mara to you).”

Ruthless self-consciousness overtook me as I scanned my letter over and over again. _Was it flippant enough? Was it too flippant? Was I swerving into pastiche in my eagerness to impress?_ I reached once again for Steven’s postcard and wondered how on earth that lopsided paragraph of posturing self-apsorption could have struck me so dumb. Maybe it was sheer vanity. Maybe profound vulnerability lay buried beneath all of his bluster and pretension. _Maybe_ , I reflected as I made a final inspection of my spelling and grammar and reached once again for an envelope- _maybe I can see through the boy as clearly as he seems to see through me._

FEBRUARY 11, 1982:

“My fellow Americans,

Thank you for your letter. It is with deep and abiding regret I must inform you it was absolutely unforgivable. A++ for the literary reference, darling student. I was beginning to worry all you ever do is diddle your vinyl. No, I’d never be caught dead at university. I’d rather wander around looking sultry and wallowing in sensual despair without the added burden of revision. Does this concern you?

My current oral fixations include Roxy Music and the New York Dolls. I expect you’ve never heard of the Dolls. They’re the best thing which ever emerged from the ghastly cacophony that was punk rock. You aren’t New Wave, are you? If you’re New Wave I shall have no choice but to fling myself off the nearest cliff. Write to me with sweaty breathless haste.

Temperamentally yours,

LORD MUDSLIDE.”

The concrete pylons lining the mailroom muffled the dull roar of a midwinter gail as I collected his second letter. With frosted mittens tucked under my elbow and ear muffs perched haphazardly at the crown of my skull, I drank in the scribble and the sketches and the lofty terminology with unrestrained delight. I’d heard of the New York Dolls, obviously, and they were hardly worthy of such superlative language. Paragraphs dripping with condescension swirled their way round my mind as I tucked the envelope under the lapel of my jacket and hurried upstairs into the maelstrom.

Six months passed us by. Stuffed into letter-boxes, Steven and I exchanged everything from veiled threats to sexual propositions with eager regularity. At one point he sent me a sepia self-portrait- probably taken inside a photo booth- under which was written “NOW LET ME LAUGH AT YOURS.” The boy’s face might well have been carved from his own prose: an imploring array of white-marble vertices culminated in a shock of dark hair which descended at angles towards his thick, somber brow. His eyes were pale and lucid and his upper lip drew into startling peaks along his cupid’s bow. There was something ethereal about him- a vague note of otherworldliness lurking in those taut inky lay-lines. I responded in turn with a polaroid, my coiled-copper bob, snub nose, and imperiously pointed chin displayed in stark relief against the whitewashed walls of the dormitory. _Not exactly the face that launched a thousand ships_ , I thought as I shook the bleeding ink dry, _but it’ll have to do_.

The letters from Manchester poured forth with ever more vociferous ferocity through the autumn- then paragraph by paragraph, week by week, Steven and I ebbed apart. I plunged headlong into my coursework and scrabbled for major after major. He mentioned in passing that he’d formed a band with a few local boys called ‘Unknown’ or ‘Angels are Genderless’ or something. Occasionally, passing by the mailroom stairs on charcoal-coated afternoons, I’d remember him and the odd transient intimacy we shared- two spirits in staunch rebellion against the dying of the light. My interactions with acquaintances were as stilted as ever, the pop and crackle of the record player echoed through the witching hours, and his letters lay immaculate inside the bottom drawer of my writing desk like stone relics from a time long past. _Wherever the boy is going_ , I mused one night in a paroxysm of nostalgia, I hope he makes it. _God knows he fucking deserves it._

JUNE 25, 1983:

There was an envelope in the post today. There was not-just-any-envelope in the post today. I recognized the return address and the runic scrawl in an instant and my pulse came screaming through my ears. With clammy fingers, I slashed it open and fished out a newspaper clipping half the span of my hand. It looked as though it had been cut from some Manchester rag's ‘Coming Events’ page: “Saturday, June 29th: The Hacienda Concert Hall welcomes The Smiths once again. Tickets available at the door.” Above the notice was a publicity photo, printed nearly incoherently small, of- _no, wait. Was that HIM_? I turned over the clipping in my hand. In bright black ink over another string of faded words he’d written “HELLO UNIVERSITY PHANTOM. PLEASE, PLEASE COME SEE THE MESS I’VE MADE OF MY LIFE."

Spring term at university had ended nearly a month ago and now I languished around my parents’ old townhouse in Lancashire. I glanced over at the mutilated envelope and noted with a twinge of affection that he’d remembered my course schedule and summer address. It felt like a cheap sort of surrender- as though he’d bought back the immediacy of our attachment with a bit of careful record-keeping and a scrap of paper barely large enough to obscure my palm. _Then again_ , I reflected, after a drawn-out separation too messy and distant to be blamed on anyone in particular, despite his metamorphosis from back-bedroom casualty to local talent, _it was he who’d reestablished contact_. And anyway, I cared. This earth was littered with inconsequentialities that tugged like madness at the base of my ribs because they reminded me of him. The boy was smug and pigheaded and contrary and self-interested and it was a marvel no one had bludgeoned him to a pulp in a back-alley somewhere- but deep down I’d always known I could never bear to forget him. I realized I’d made a decision the moment I glimpsed my home address scratched out in his whorled uncanny hand. I would attend Steven’s concert. I would pay witness to the realization of his dream.

JUNE 29, 1983:

I sat crosslegged at the back corner of the bus service to Manchester, eyes scanning the same page of a paperback over and over again as my head swam with senseless deliberation. Here, amid the foggy blur of the street signs, so close to a boy previously composed only of ink and paper, I felt a numb sort of surreality sinking into my skin. _Christ, will he even recognize me?_ I reached up and felt the pad of my index finger brush against my lips- painted immaculate crimson in front of my bedroom mirror that afternoon. _What am I trying to prove?_ I stuffed the book into my purse and shifted round toward the window. Mile by mile, boggy moors gave way to residential districts and high-rise council estates carved like promontories out of the cloud-cover. We couldn’t be more than ten minutes from the concert hall. I glanced down at my watch. _This is it_ , I thought, with some strange hybrid of anticipation and trepidation gathering under my ribs. _Steven is about to become flesh and blood._

A milling gaggle had already formed outside the Hacienda by the time I arrived. They were a noisy array of teenagers, university students, and washed-up punks conversing in wild gesticulations and sharp peals of laughter and try as I might to maintain my disengagement I couldn’t help but be swept up in the strange-angled delight of it all. For a boy who could wax like a dying Romantic about the profundity of his loneliness, he and his band certainly didn't lack for admirers.

After ten or fifteen minutes- and a good deal of jockeying around in front of the box office- I collected my ticket and stepped inside the auditorium. It was larger than I’d expected, although the charcoal-colored walls and the odd immediacy of the stage gave it an air of insularity. Several yards behind me, a ring of lads were attempting to initiate some sort of football chant. The hall was filled to near-capacity, bodies squirmed and jostled round me, the singing and whooping and half-shouted conversations echoed from the ceiling- and then they dimmed the gallery lights and all those discordant voices dissolved into a single howling peal. I gathered my arms against my chest and smiled and screamed along, voice lost in the crowd, feeling the thrumming at the base of my throat. Then a spotlight rent apart the darkness and he stepped out onto the stage.

 _Oh Christ. Jesus fucking Christ. There he fucking is_. I swallowed my cacophony and stood stock-still and silent, mouth agape, unconscious of the bodies and the noise bearing down around me. The figure at the forefront of the platform was Steven- unmistakably so. But he had little in common with the jumble of self-conscious apologies gazing out of that photo booth portrait of so many months ago. He’d styled his mop of hair into a quiff that appeared nothing short of gravity-defying. A woman’s dress shirt lay draped across his shoulders, unbuttoned down to the waist, shifting languorously along bare skin as he moved. His neck was a column of immaculate flesh, slender and arched and humming with youth. And his face- in the headiness of the stage lights his face was a thing of bewildering beauty. My stomach lurched sideways. I remembered the missives and the drawings and the ink-splattered pretension and the vulgar witticisms and those moments when despair shone through hollow words and then the boy grabbed the microphone and spoke.

“Hallo there, you little charmers,” he purred in a lilting Mancunian baritone. “We’re The Smiths.” _God. Shall I just admit to myself I’m attracted to him, then_? Here was my dark and distant spiritual connection made manifest and I wanted to fuck him. Buried in the crowd, entrapped on all sides, I felt profoundly exposed. A jangling guitar pierced through the roar and then there it came again- that mad uncanny voice, drawn out this time into a solitary note, evocative and vulnerable and entirely unique. As I listened he wove poetry into intricate pop. Steven sang about rejection, redemption, and sensuality, everything he had veiled in his letters now on full display. Sheer joy was palpable through the bodies round me. Song followed song followed song and I couldn’t help but slip into the chaos of it all.

The entire set lasted around an hour and a half. Afterward, as the overheads were all ignited again and the crowd bobbed about in the wake of a broken spell, I happened to notice a small throng picking its way intently towards a side exit. _Here we go_. I stole behind them through the door, down a cramped fluorescent hallway scrawled with graffiti, then right up against the entrance to the dressing rooms. Ahead in the gloom, a bodyguard gripped one of the group round the shoulders. “‘Old on a minute, you.” The man turned to rap one knuckle against the dressing room door and with the air of a man who’d spoken the same words a thousand times before he snarled, “Oi! Go’ about a dozen people in the ‘all who wants to see you. Wha’ shall I do wiv ‘em?” Silence for a moment. Then a familiar sultry rumble came floating through the hinges: “Oh, let them in.”

The bodyguard cocked an eyebrow. “It’s yer lucky day, lads.” He relinquished his hold on the boy and took a step to the right, leaving the head of the throng free to scrabble at the doorknob and rush inside. I remembered all the letters. I remembered university parties of yore, the way I’d walked and spoken and introduced myself while chasing after some handsome figure or other. _Was this a den of iniquity?_ I swallowed, patted my hands dry against my the hem of my dress, and stepped into the dressing room.

The scene which greeted me was almost dystopian. The fans had fanned out round the room, hugging and kissing and slapping band members on the back, removing articles of clothing for autography, scratching their names into the oft-violated concrete walls, and screaming praise out over the racket. A smallish, slightish young man in a hairsprayed mop sat perched against one wall plucking at his guitar. Roadies elbowed their way through the morass to collect equipment. And there, looking lost and exhausted in the middle of it all, was Steven. The boy's blouse was drenched with sweat, his eyes shone with a sort of delirium, and he grasped and smiled as gamely as he could at the ring which had formed around him. I sensed he wasn’t quite used to all the adulation. Then I must have caught his periphery, for he glanced up toward the doorway, brow knitted in bewilderment for one wild moment- and it hit him.

“Oh- oh god! Mara!” Our eyes locked. He gave some lad one last absentminded embrace, then broke free of the throng and approached me with a sheepish, loping sort of gait.

“The one and only.” I replied as jovially as I could, my pulse beating through my ears as I watched him bear down on me. _Good Christ. You’re even prettier up close_ , I thought, and I felt blood rising to my face. His shoulders shifted- as though he were about to reach out for me- and then he leant backwards and stared at the floor. _Is he- does he want to hug me? Are we on hugging terms now? Is he as terrified by the prospect as I am?_ I flashed him a nearly apologetic smile, stepped forward, and placed my arms gently around his shoulders just where that damned matron’s button-down gave way to bare, slick skin. He responded in turn and bowed his head against the curve of my neck.

“It’s been quite a long time, hasn’t it?” He said after we had separated, standing a matter of inches away, swaying a little in the ambient chaos, fielding the odd word or gesture of congratulation with a smile.

“It has.”

“Oh, and, er-thank you. For coming to see all of this.” That strange uncanny countenance broke into a broad grin and he gestured vaguely.

“No trouble at all. You’ve done well for yourself, Stevie m’boy.” I grinned back, pitching down my final two words like a benevolently cantankerous old fisherman. _Wait, what the fuck am I doing? Is this charming? I’m a train wreck._

“Oh, did I not tell you? I’ve been going by my last name for a few months now.” He said this almost imperiously, as though he were walking well-trodden ground.

“You’ve been _going by your last name_?”

“Well-yes. Morrissey. It’s Morrissey. Exclusively… Morrissey.”

“What, was Steven not middle-class enough?” I cocked an eyebrow and he raised one long delicate hand to his mouth and giggled and then there we were on terra firma- swapping jibes like pretentious sixth-formers.

“Oh, and you’re one to talk, Mara,” he rejoined, mimicking my Liverpuddlian accent in feathery falsetto. “Never Margaret- that's for repressed drawing-room hostesses who spill tea into their- into their brassieres.”

“Brassieres? I love it when you talk dirty to me.” _Am I flirting? Fucking Christ._

“God, I want to die.” The boy glanced down and I noted with something like satisfaction that his face was burning and the smile across his face had spread wider. “I expect you’re about fifteen years old by now, too."

“Nineteen. But who’s counting?” _Why don’t I just get my tits out and start shimmying? It would be a little more fucking subtle._

Then a lad brushed by us chanting at the top of his lungs with a fistful of drumsticks in hand and two roadies in tow and suddenly Steven’s- sorry, MORRISSEY’S- expression changed. “Listen, do you- do you want to go and talk somewhere a little quieter?"

 _Christ, is this happening?_ I remembered a precious few previous interludes, all university boys with the sleeves of their blazers rolled to their elbows who’d asked me to escape parties with them, and then I searched the ethereal imploring face hovering over mine and wondered whether this time, talk really did mean _talk_. “Lead the way.”

Dimples appeared in his sallow marble cheeks and he swung around towards the doorway, still ajar and unattended. I followed him out to the hall, past a few gang tags and exit signs, and into- into a small slant-roofed storage room. _Cheeky boy_. Stev-MORRISSEY, for his part, seemed unaware of the implications of his chosen location. He ducked his head a little through the threshold and gestured round like a small child displaying a treehouse.

“They never follow me in here. And you can barely ever hear the shouting when the door is closed.” He said with rueful pride. _Does he come here alone to hide after concerts, then_? In an instant I felt desperately endeared to him- to this odd beautiful unsure creature with meek sensuality painted in rough broad brushstrokes. The blouse left little to the imagination along his chest and torso and violin-dents peeked out of his lower back just above the hemline of his jeans and I wondered whether he’d ever experienced exactly what they hinted at.

“So.”

“So.”

“You’ve done terribly well for yourself, haven’t you?” I prompted. We were leaned against opposite walls of this glorified broom closet with our arms crossed and a single naked light bulb hanging between us, staring each other down, eyes pale and shining.

“Yes, I suppose I have.” He smirked and ran a few fingers through his quiff. “And I forgive you all your months of radio silence. University must be going just swimmingly.”

“All MY months of radio silence? I would have kept in contact if your letters hadn’t been so spaced apart and-“

“But yours were so short and cold and uncaring I thought-“

“And I assumed you were just too caught up in all of this to mind too much.” I gestured toward the door- back toward the echoing hallways and the vast expanse of the auditorium.

“God, I never meant to-“

“Nor did I!”

He knitted his brow, brilliant blue irises obscured within half-lidded eyes. “It’s funny,” the boy mumbled, and he reached out to me tentatively and grasped my shoulder. “It’s funny the way people drift apart.” His hand shifted to my collarbone, then the nape of my neck, and I basked in the warmth of his long delicate fingers and stared him down with vulgar yearning written all over my face. “Jesus Christ, Mara,” he breathed. “I never realized you’d be so... touchable.”

There was something about the way he said that word- touchable. It rolled across his tongue and the tap of his teeth like an unfamiliar name and I could sense he’d had little occasion to verbalize it before. Then in the silence which followed, his gaze found mine again and all at once I couldn’t stand it anymore. I stepped forward, grabbed the lapel of his blouse, and with my chin upturned and my insides boiling I placed a slow, soft, shaky peck at one edge of his mouth. “Then touch me,” I murmured. “Fucking touch me.”

For one dizzying moment the boy froze. Then he tightened his grip round the back of my neck, brought his free hand to rest against my cheek, bowed his head, and kissed me gently. His lips were warm and plump and tremulous and he moved cautiously, intricate fantasy rather than experience at his aid. I shifted forward and pressed my body against his. He broke the kiss and stared into my face, eyes nearly glazed over by lust. A low whimper escaped his throat. I could feel the beginnings of his erection brushing against my stomach. He relinquished his grasp on my neck and his hands drifted shaking through the air to the top button of my dress. Then he paused- waited for permission. I nodded and placed another kiss against those flush flower-petal lips and with elegant precision he unraveled me loophole by loophole. The garment slid to the floor. I responded in kind, my mouth seeking out his, slow and gentle between breaths, as I tugged his blouse off his shoulders and tossed it gently to one side. Then more roughly he wrapped his arms around my bare torso and pulled me towards him. The warmth and the slickness of the sweat on his skin mingled between us and I was lost in the primeval beauty of flesh against flesh- beating hearts nearly colliding underneath the swell of our ribs.

His cock was more insistent now and as I drew away from him I saw that it had tented his jeans impressively. I kissed him again on the mouth, then along the stark sloping line of his jaw, down his elegant neck, and I tasted salt on his skin as I relished every inch of his collarbone and chest. I reached down and brushed my hand along the top of the protrusion, drawing a quiet, shivering moan from his lips. He gazed at me imploringly, innocence clouded with obscenity along the startling lines of his face. Let it never be said I cannot take a hint. I knelt down before him, scrabbled for a moment with the buckle of his jeans, tugged the whole affair down to mid-thigh, and freed his cock from the flimsy fabric of his boxer shorts. “You know, you- you don’t have to…” he mumbled, his hands reaching down to brush through locks of my mussed hair. I glanced up and flashed him a wicked grin. “It’s my pleasure.” I gripped the base of his shaft in one hand and placed a soft kiss at its tip, then wrapped my lips slowly, carefully around the entire head, eliciting another intemperate whimper. My head pumped back and forth as my palm ministrated carefully to the remainder of his length in a steady rhythm and soon he’d anchored his fingers along the back of my skull and, thrust by thrust, begun to fuck my mouth. After several minutes his gyration became feverish and insistent and I moved my hands round to the swell of his thighs, allowing him to bury his cock to the hilt into my throat. I sucked and slurped and sputtered and he ground into my parted lips for a few final desperate strokes before he came- a thick hot stream too abundant to swallow. A coughing fit struck me and I toppled backwards, clutching both hands to my mouth. “Aw- fuck,” I gasped. “If you don’t want to kiss me again, I’ll understand.”

In a haze of blissful delirium, Morrissey hiked up his jeans, plucked up his crumpled blouse from the floor, and knelt down gently beside me. “Nonsense,” he said. He cradled my head in one hand and with the sleeve of his shirt grasped in the other, he dabbed at the opaque spatters of cum stuck to my mouth and chin. Once I’d been wiped clean, he bent down and placed a kiss against my lips which was nothing short of worshipful. Then he lifted his gaze to mine and whispered conspiratorially: “I’ve never done this before in my life, so bear with me.” He tossed his blouse aside once more and reached round my torso for the clasp of my bra. I wriggled upwards until I sat with my shoulderblades against the wall, back arched in order to give him room to maneuver. The boy rallied three or four times until he finally managed it, whereupon he slid each strap down my shoulders with an air of intense reverence. Then his mouth connected with the little hollow beneath my collarbone, his hands tracing the swell of my breasts, the pad of his thumb drawing dainty little circles around one nipple. _Christ. He knows his Lady Chatterly_. His quiff was nuzzled against the underside of my chin and I dug my fingers into his hair just as he- _OH SWEET FUCKING LORD_. Two long, delicate, unfamiliar fingers connected with my clit through the fabric of my boyshorts. _How did I not see where that hand was going_? _Fuck. FUCK. **FUCK**_. I keened out loud and bucked my hips into his fingers.

“Shall I-?”

“Yes. GOD. Please.”

“Right.”

I kicked my legs into the air and he tugged off my panties with a flourish, arcing them so they landed near my bundled dress with a soft thump. For a moment he seemed to consider readopting his previous position. He glanced down at my bare, slick abdomen. Then up at my face, pleading in the flourescence. Then down again- and I knew exactly what he was thinking. _Fuck. Here we go_. He settled between my legs on his haunches like a predatory cat and placed an excruciatingly slow, soft line of kisses along the inside of one thigh- closer, and, closer, and closer, and then all at once his mouth was pressed against the lips of my cunt and his tongue connected with my clit and that goddamn quiff bobbed and trembled above my hipbones- it all might have looked ridiculous if it hadn’t felt so fucking good. My legs shook of their own accord as I squirmed and gulped for air. A minute passed and I convulsed almost violently, fingers scrabbling against the nape of his neck, torrential pleasure flooding its way up my spine. The boy pulled away and flashed me a smug little grin. “Not so terrible.” His mouth was full and flushed and glossy with cum and pieces of his hair were sticking straight on end and his eyebrows were lifted roguishly and I sat bolt upright, seized him by the jaw, and whispered into his ear: “I want you inside me right fucking now.”

I hardly needed to ask. He squirmed out of his boxers again, his cock completely rejuvenated, and I stood up to retrieve my purse from the far wall. After a moment of rifling around, I fished out a condom, thanking all the gods in heaven for the blindly optimistic whim which had impelled me to begin carrying them around a few months ago. “You’ve never done this before either, I gather,” I remarked as I returned to his side. The boy’s face broke into an impish grin and he shook his head. “Half an hour ago I was almost entirely innocent.”

“Well then. Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle with you,” I replied, and I kissed him as soft and as searchingly as I had the first time. My fingers trembled as I tore open the little foil packet. He blushed and licked his lips like a debutante as I unfurled the condom over his shaft, and then, after just a moment’s hesitation, he seized me round the waist and tugged me into his lap. “Hello university phantom,” he breathed into the corner of my jaw. “My darling, pretty, dear little ghost.” I shifted my body round to straddle him. My knees dug into the floor, my cunt hovered a spare inch from the head of his cock, and then all at once I was sliding down, down, through frissons of pain, until my ass rested against the top of his thighs and I was full enough to burst. The boy could detect my discomfort. He clutched me protectively to his chest and I wove my fingers together behind his neck, face nestled above his collarbone, breathing in the scent of his hair.  I began to roll my hips- gingerly at first, as agony was replaced in waves by pleasure, then with mounting enthusiasm. Eyes screwed shut, our lips sought each other and we kissed desperately, savagely, as I impaled myself against his cock over and over and over again. His hands gripped angry scratches into my tailbone and I mussed and tangled what was left of his quiff breathing little cries of abject ecstasy into his neck and jaw and mouth. Then my legs were electrified by those familiar old shivers and a moment later his breath caught in his throat and tumbling we went over the edge together.

“You know… eventually some roadie is going to come in here to fetch equipment.” I remarked as we leaned side by side against the far wall of the closet.

“Oh, they won’t mind. They’re all practically Neanderthals.” Morrissey lolled his head against mine and grinned.

I couldn’t help but smile back. “And I’m sure your bandmates are going to be slapping you on the back later tonight, you scoundrel.”

“Mara, dearest, are you worried about being robbed of your modesty?” He jibed. “Don’t worry. I’ll spare them everything but the goriest details.”

“Damn straight you will. And for my part, I’ll tell all my spit-polish university friends about the unkempt little ruffian I met on the road to Manchester-“

“Oh, stop that!” He bowed his head and giggled. Then an incongruously contemplative shadow crossed his face and he held my gaze with solemn eyes. “And before you go traipsing off alone to Liverpool with your hair electrocuted and your dress all rumpled- before we relinquish the flesh to the written word again…”

“Yes?”

The boy paused and bit his lip. “Won’t you stay a while?” He placed one hand softly along the nape of my neck and held his arm out to me. I curled up against the curve of his figure. And there we lay huddled bare, gusts of breath and whispers mingling in the darkness, one final bastion at the edge of the world against the sleet-gray encroaching dawn.


End file.
